The first refresh of Ryzen is nearly upon us and as per new releases go, we’re getting into the heavy duty leaks season. Zen+ is really a minor refresh of the original Zen architecture. We will see a slightly better manufacturing process of 12nm, and the bumps in stock clock speeds seem to be landing in the 200-300 MHz range. The first preliminary benchmark leaks show impressive leads in comparison to the previous gen chips, but I’m beginning to see a potential catch in the numbers that I think should be pointed out. If we do a direct comparison of the upcoming 2700X to the 1700X, some of the results are looking really good. Cinbench R15 scores start to indicate as much as 20% performance improvements! That’s a pretty incredible number considering it’s only been a year and Zen+ is a refresh. Firestrike scores cool down to closer to 10% leads, but Sissoftware Sandra’s Dhrystone benchmark shows a massive jump of around 40%!!! All of that sounds really great at first, but then we need to address what the real comparison is shaping up to be. Up to this point, there hasn’t been a rumor of a 2800X being released, which is rather curious. It wouldn’t be a huge surprise if AMD toned down their 8 core lineup to two separate SKUs instead of three. All at once, the 2700X becomes the new flagship 8 core chip and the direct comparison to the previous generation would more appropriately be the 1800X. That 20% performance jump quickly cools to around a 10% performance bump.There’s still some potential caveats that have to be considered with the upcoming release though. Clock speeds and performance optimizations are probably a little ways from being completed to the degree AMD wants them before release. Also, just because a 2800X isn’t on the radar yet doesn’t mean plans aren’t in place to release one later on if the chip would be deemed worth the development. Practically speaking though, I believe the 2700X is going to remain the flagship processor of the Zen+ optimization and another recent leak backs this up. The good news is that through some official slides that leaked, it looks like AMD is doing comparisons of the 2700X directly to the 1800X. A set of gaming benchmarks are showing about a 5% increase in FPS overall, and I personally appreciate that AMD is choosing this direction of marketing since it’s a far more accurate depiction of what Zen+ should bring to the market.So far it looks like this refresh is measuring up right according to expectations. It would be unlikely to see some massive performance boost overall, but certain optimizations could drastically help specific areas like the ones Dhrystone reflects. This is a great step in maturing the Zen architecture, and hopefully Zen 2 will lead to greater performance improvements overall with the new architecture design it’s supposed to release with next year. Check out the links below from WCCFTech for more details and keep checking back for more news and reviews! https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-200...formance-leak/https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-2000-...prices-leaked/